Elizabeth Gregory is director of the women's studies program at the University of Houston.

Elizabeth Gregory is director of the women's studies program at the...

Why, asks University of Houston professor Elizabeth Gregory, do we still close schools for the summer? The American school schedule was born more than a hundred years ago, when most parents worked at home on the farm and children's labor was needed there. But in the book Gregory is now writing, she argues that short school days and long summer vacations don't remotely fit with families' lives today, and that the misfit harms kids and society. And it particularly affects mothers, whose scramble for child care can wreak havoc with their work life. Recently - after she'd driven across town to pay a deposit for her own child's summer day camp - Gregory spoke with Chronicle reporter Lisa Gray. Edited excerpts follow:

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